The W.T. Stead Resource Site (WTSRS) is a not-for-profit online reference work on the controversial newspaper editor, publisher, pacifist and spiritualist, William Thomas Stead

William Thomas Stead

William Thomas Stead was an English journalist and editor who, as one of the early pioneers of investigative journalism, became one of the most controversial figures of the Victorian era. His 'New Journalism' paved the way for today's tabloid press...

. It is currently the largest online database of material on Stead.

History and content

Launched in 2001, the WTSRS had its first incarnation as part of The Northern Echo

The Northern Echo

The Northern Echo is a leading daily regional morning newspaper, serving the North East of England. The paper is based in Priestgate, Darlington. Its covers national as well as regional news. It is one of the UK's most famous provincial newspaper titles....

's CommuniGate website, but because of technical and editorial limitations, it was later moved to its current web location. The domain name attackingthedevil.co.uk is inspired by Stead’s quotation, "What a glorious opportunity of attacking the devil."

Much of the material on the WTSRS comes from original primary sources that include key newspaper texts, such as The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon and the "Truth about the Navy". Facsimiles and a number of important contemporary texts written by or about Stead are also available to users.

The WTSRS is categorised into logical sections, each focusing on different aspects of Stead’s life and career. There is also a short biography entitled "The Great Educator" and a gallery of public domain images. From 2009, the site launched its own blog to allow users to discuss Stead and/or the issues in which he became embroiled.

Scholarly use and citation

The WTSRS is utilised by a wide variety of learning institutions, including libraries, colleges and universities within the UK and around the world. In 2009, the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 selected the WTSRS as a suitable candidate for its web archiving

Web archiving

Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the World Wide Web and ensuring the collection is preserved in an archive, such as an archive site, for future researchers, historians, and the public. Due to the massive size of the Web, web archivists typically employ web crawlers for...

 programme, in which websites that are considered a valuable contribution to UK documentary heritage are permanently archived for future generations.

Academic works that cite the WTSRS include:

• Richard Webster
  Richard Webster (author)
  Richard Webster was a British cultural historian, and the author of five published books, dealing with subjects such as the controversy over Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and the investigation of sexual abuse in Britain...
  
  , The Secret of Bryn Estyn, the Making of a Modern Witch Hunt (2005).
• Simon Goldsworthy, "English Nonconformity and the Pioneering of the Modern Newspaper Campaign," Journalism Studies, (June, 2006)
• Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor, Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland (2009)

Other media which have utilised the WTSRS include the BBC Radio drama, The Maiden Tribute and Mal Pope’s theatrical musical on the Welsh Revivalist, Evan Roberts

Evan Roberts (minister)

Evan John Roberts , was a leading figure of the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival who suffered many setbacks in his later life.His obituary in The Western Mail summed up his career thus:- Early life :...

, Amazing Grace. Most recently, the WTSRS contributed to the Salvation Army's documentary, Our People: The Story of William and Catherine Booth.

Not-for-Profit status

As a not-for-profit reference work, the WTSRS is free to users and no subscription is required for access. However, in 2009, Google ads and other advertising media were introduced to offset maintenance costs and hosting fees.

Influence

Since its inception, the WTSRS has considerably raised public awareness of Stead. The site is now widely known among journalism historians, RMS Titanic enthusiasts and even spiritualists; and, though still very much a work in progress, it has been academically lauded as "a treasure trove of contemporary documentation."

External links

• The W.T. Stead Resource Site